Our data transformation

Brigitte Fuhr, our Head of Central Data Science, joined our team to make millions of lives better. Now she’s working on a global program that will transform our ability to develop ground-breaking treatments.

In 2017, when I was considering leaving my data science position in the aviation industry to work in the pharmaceutical industry, for Boehringer Ingelheim, I asked myself one question: “Do you want to keep optimizing flight schedules, or do you want to save lives?” I enjoyed my work in aviation, but I was struck by the personal difference I could make in fighting diseases. In the end, it was an easy decision.

A vital science

Data science is important to most industries and companies, but it’s vital in pharmaceuticals. We have huge amounts of data – from clinical trials, biobank data, electronic health records as well as supply chain and production data. It has the potential to help us better understand how diseases originate and how we can potentially cure them, or to bring new treatments to patients faster.

Setting information free

But the information we need is often trapped in the data. The challenge is, how do we set it free? At Boehringer Ingelheim, we’ve been using data for a long time – back in the old days, they tracked it in binders! Today, luckily, we track the information digitally. But certain data is stored in databases, in data warehouses, and we were working on a full oversight of the data we have available. We needed a big change to make all of our data findable and we created the infrastructure and processes to use it effectively. This was central to our business objectives. Data offers huge potential along our entire value chain, from early drug discovery and clinical trials to production and sales.

Welcome to dataland

So, we embarked on a revolutionary transformation. It’s called dataland. It’s a company-wide program to create a seamless ecosystem. This ecosystem connects data from different domains, and makes all our data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. We’re moving to a cloud infrastructure, where we’ll have all the technical capabilities needed to process huge amounts of data, and we’ll have a structured catalog where we can easily find out who the data owner is and what we can use it for.

The training behind the transformation

To make dataland a success, we train our data experts. That’s where the new Data Science Academy comes in. It is a program within our internal Boehringer Ingelheim University intended to increase our pool of data scientists and engineers. Our aim: to strengthen our company-wide data literacy. This will increase the awareness about the business potential of data and foster a data-driven culture across the company, encouraging an openness to breaking new ground and finding new ways of working.

What’s next for data science

It’s an exciting time for our data science community at Boehringer Ingelheim. We can see the company’s commitment to data-driven thinking, and we’re already noticing the impact of these initiatives on our work. We expect our numbers to double in the coming years, which gives us a strong sense of forward momentum and many new opportunities.

What does dataland mean to you?

For the company, these changes mean we can be more effective in targeting diseases and developing breakthrough treatments. For me personally, it means getting closer to achieving my goal of having a positive impact – and being glad I made that decision in 2017 to change industries and join Boehringer Ingelheim.